Painting Across the Texas Landscape - Book Report/Review Example

Observation Visual Art Critique For my observation project, I decided to go to a nearby museum, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, because they have a show of Edward Eisenlohr landscapes. This was interesting to me because of the way the show was advertised. According to the description I saw, this artist painted the Texas landscape as he saw it during the first half of the 20th century. I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of changes were reflected in the paintings with the effects of the oil booms as compared to today. By looking at art that shows the area we live in as it used to be, it is easier to see why we need to appreciate what we have around us. Even though we might think that rock over there will be there forever, browsing through Eisenlohr's paintings prove that nothing stays the same such as in the untitled painting that heads the exhibition. This painting presents the image of a mission-style building that sits on a rural corner in a small village or town. The painting is small, only about 12 inches by 16 inches, but this may have made it easier for the artist to paint outdoors as he was looking at the scene. It is an oil on canvas board. The board would have kept the painting surface still during painting, but oil takes a long time to dry, especially with the thick layers he used to create an impressionist style. The main building in the image, set just to the left of center, is a large, white-stucco building with three tall windows set high up in the wall. There is a tower element visible on the building which makes it clear that the place where the audience is standing is viewing this building from the side. Two dusty dirt roads intersect just in front of the building with one coming along the side of it and the other coming from the bottom right corner of the picture plane. Although it can be imagined that they continue as one road around to the front of the building, it is hard to see any more of the road beyond the point of intersection. Further back in the picture is a red building with a grey roof that might be a barn and a white building with a steeper roof and a chimney which might be a farmhouse. There seems to be a white rail fence running along the front edge of these other buildings. The triangular space in the foreground between the two roads is filled with tall green and yellow grasses and a mostly red small tree. The background behind the buildings is built up with much taller, fuller and greener trees. The sky is mostly full of billowy clouds with bright blue sky visible along the top edge of the painting. The artist seems to be trying to say that Texas is a place of surprising complexity. Although the scene looks peaceful at first, there are elements in the painting that make this peace seem misleading. For example, the windows in the building are set very high up, as if they are on the second floor. That kind of architecture is usually made for defense and this suggests a history for the town that would have required a fort of some kind, but a current peace that allows the fort to be converted to friendlier purposes with the larger windows. There also seems to be a kind of defensiveness in the fence along the back buildings because the fence posts seem somewhat spiky. However, it is a simple rail fence and easily crossed, so it isn't a strong defense. There isn't any traffic in the image - no people are walking around on the street, no one is visible in or around the buildings and there aren't even any animals around. This could indicate a ghost town of sorts in which no one lives here anymore or it could indicate a lazy afternoon when everyone is somewhere else. Another strange combination is the peaceful feeling of an old red barn such as the building seen in the background and the more immediate sense of violence that seems present in the flame-like structure of the small red tree in the foreground. The white billowing clouds in the background seem peaceful enough, but they're very solid and could seem imposing if it weren't for the glimpse of blue sky at the very top of the painting. In the end, although the painting seems to be a very peaceful and relaxed country setting, the artist has given it a sense of history, activity and energy through his choice of elements. The work is valuable simply on its merits as being among the few available images we have of early Texas, but Eisenlohr's work is also valuable because of the concepts he provided for other artists. He called himself a American Impressionist and painted in the style of other famous artists in Europe. The heavy build up of paint on his canvas and the expressive way that he used it to convey an emotional reaction to the scene remind me more of Van Gogh, though, who was considered an Expressionist. These elements are really brought forward when you can see the painting in person and the ligh­t begins to reflect off of the various different layers of paint. I'm not sure I would have noticed the qualities of the small tree, for example, if I were just looking at an image of the painting online. It is believed the painting was made around 1940 which would have given the artist plenty of time to have learned about both the Impressionist and Expressionist schools of artistic thought. The artist maintains a pleasant balance through the painting by balancing the red of the tree with the red of the barn and the white of the front building with the white of the farmhouse and the clouds in the background. This helps to create a sense of harmony throughout, but there is a great deal more weight of color on the left side of the canvas as compared to the right and I think this contributes to the sense of something off in the scene that makes you take a closer look. Because of this second look, the artist is able to convey to the viewer the idea that Texas is more than what you see on the surface - it has a history and a violent past with the capacity to return to its roots relatively quickly. The painting has stood the test of time both in its content and in its unique position as being the work of one of the earlier Texas landscape painters. At first, I didn't think I would see anything all that amazing by going to an art show such as this one. I thought I might be mildly interested in what it had to show about Texas at an earlier and less developed point in history, but I thought the show would be pretty dull. I was very surprised to see the energy and passion that was reflected in the works. His style kept making me feel as if he were trying to keep something hidden or hold something back at the same time that he was trying to show it in other ways, such as through the energy of his brush strokes or the build-up of his paints. They aren't super-thick like what is seen in a Van Gogh painting, but there are places where the paint was obviously applied quickly and allowed to stay thick on purpose. This particular painting hit me because of the way it forced me to look at it and study it. Somehow it made me feel off-balance and I had to find out why. The mechanics involved were relatively easy to figure out with the balance of color, but the way that changed what I felt the artist was trying to communicate was amazing. I think I will have to look at pictures more carefully from now on. Read More